


on happiness

by antigravityhats



Series: The Joys of Cooking and Other Various Emotions [2]
Category: Blaseball (Video Game)
Genre: Emotions, Existential Crisis, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Other, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:15:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27782848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antigravityhats/pseuds/antigravityhats
Summary: When a simple question is really not so simple at all.
Relationships: Landry Violence/Moody Cookbook
Series: The Joys of Cooking and Other Various Emotions [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2032519
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5





	on happiness

...I need a moment.

They knew he would understand that, even if it did go against his own nature to do so. They knew he could be patient, even if he didn’t always want to. It was a touching fact to know. To know he would give them the time they needed. To know he was willing to compromise.

Because this was important.

It was a simple question, really. It should have a simple answer. It should, but it didn’t. There were too many angles to frame the question from and even more to consider the answer from. Were they happy? 

I don’t know.

Hell, they hardly know how to consider the question let alone answer it. They’ve never been asked this before - not so genuinely and certainly not so bluntly. It was very him in nearly every way. Direct. To the point. Cutting straight to their metaphorical heart. It made them feel… warm to think about. But was that happiness?

Am I happy?

How could they be? As they sat here, in a body not their own with the weight of the Trench crushing down upon them, they could not say yes. It followed them everywhere, reminding them that in the end they had never truly left. Even when they’d be high up in the sky the despair clung to them, pulsing from the scar branded into their very being. It was suffocating, even for a being like them who could not breathe. They were still in there. They all still were. And even if they weren’t the game they had all loved had been twisted into a state unrecognizable. 

Step up to the plate. Strike. Swing. Strike. Catch a fly out. Foul ball. Strike. Strike. Home run. 0-0. Catch an out at an unfamiliar plate. Ball. Ball. Foul. Triple. The spot where they'd been hit throbbed, giving off smoke and ash and sickly blue light as it's hit again by a faceless pitcher. Ground out. A double play - a toss to the short stop who rockets it in the direction of 1st. They turn to cheer at him out of sheer habit, their body forgetting for just a moment exactly where they are, and suddenly they are in an entirely different nightmare of heat and ash and Paula's scream. Of choking on his name because expressing the grief boiling in their core somehow made it _real_. As if staring at scorch marks and feeling themself shatter was fake. As if they hadn't seen that faceless void full of teeth and malice step onto the field and raise a finger and-

No. No. Focus. FOCUS. They needed to Ground themself. To use the technique he had that day so long ago in the locker room and he that Fish Summer had imprinted into their head years later. He was fine. He had always been fine. He was here and they were here and they were both safe from a true death. It was fine. This game could take a lot from them, bit they could never do that.

It could do everything else though. It could to tear families apart in the blind of an eye. It could take away your glory as bestow it elsewhere just as fast. Nothing was safe. Nothing was sacred. They were dead. Pio was dead - their _child_ and so many others were dead and trapped and silenced by the void. And the rest were all still at the mercy of a game more interested in their suffering than anything approximating fairness. Each and every one of them carried the world on their shoulders and there was only so much of that burden that they could take onto themself.

The world was not a happy place for them to be right now. And, yet, they could not immediately bring themself to say no. That wasn’t the truth either, not quite. Because if they were being honest, in some ways, they had never felt quite like this before. This existence was nice in nearly as many ways as it was complicated. 

They had a body now, even if it wasn’t their own. A body they could inhabit and do physical things that had never been even within the realm of possibility for them before. They’d done and tried so many new things since then. Trying food - the thing they had centered so much of their identity on - and actually tasting it was nearly enough in itself to make the whole damn situation worth it. But not even that was the most important part of it.

Being close to him in itself was a gift. Being able to talk to him without saying anything at all was a relief. Being able to feel some of his emotions and to know without a shadow of a doubt that they were cared for was something else entirely. They liked it. They liked being able to reach out, hands grasping, and actually find someone else there to latch onto. This whole thing, for as much as it shouldn’t feel _right_ was more right than they can ever really remember things being.

When was the last time they felt happy? There had been moments. Of course there had been. Some had even been rather long. How could there not be? They had a family and a damn good one at that. They'd give anything for that family at the drop of a hat. Anything. And yet it was hard to say they were happy overall then. They were grieving. They, the plural, were grieving. And that meant mess. That meant fallout. That meant more time than not spent trying to play clean up. It had been worth it a thousand times over just to hear any one of them utter the name 'dad' at them. Dad. They were dad. Or mumu. Sometimes it was even just Moods. It didn't matter the specific term - they all meant the same thing in the end. That happiness - momentary as it was - was worth every damn thing this game had thrown at them.

Yet they hadn't been truly happy then either. They hadn't moved on. Every time they thought they might be getting there the world had to fall to pieces again. Whether it be because of feedback or loss or even just a faint chuckle they swore they heard on the trail end of a dying storm.

Perhaps before then? After they'd both gotten their act together a bit. That last season? Their fights had turned to fond bickering. The team around them had finally found its footing as both a team and a family. They had been happy then, they think, or somewhere damn near close to it.

I cannot say that I am happy - the world is not a place that allows for that. But you make me happy. You always have. Even when you’ve infuriated me. I am happy with you in a way I am not happy with the world. Does that count? Does it count if what we have here doesn't cancel out what's going on outside? Can these two states co-exist? I don’t know. Even as someone currently co-existing with you I cannot fathom those two things creating what we have here. This? It might not be the ideal state but it is _healthy_ and it is fundamentally good. I feel wanted here. I feel heard here. I feel safe here. Those two concepts could never foster this sort of environment. And yet I cannot think of them independently of one another. Perhaps that is in itself the problem? 

The fact I cannot think of my own emotional state independent of the greater world state is telling in some ways. If I am happy with you and I am here more often than not then shouldn't I be happy? Why can't I be happy? Even with the Trench a constant in the back of my head I do feel happiness? Because it doesn't matter? 

My feelings never have mattered compared to the ones around me. They're artificial. They're something I chose to have and something I'm fairly confident I could choose to not. To me they are an auxiliary factor. And yet, how does I reconcile that with the fact that I can tell they matter to you? I can feel that I matter. I can feel that you don't like when I say they don't.

If what I feel is fake then what does that say about what I feel about you? Are those feelings lesser because they come from something like me? I don't like that thought. Because those feelings do matter. Your importance matters. The kid's importance matters. Artificial or otherwise those feelings matter. Even if it's only for your sake that they do.

So where does that leave me? Confused and contrary and lost in my own head? I don't know that I am happy. I don't know that I am anything. All I know is that here with you it's easy to believe that I am. 


End file.
